March 23rd, 2009

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Baby News Update: 22 Weeks

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Baby seems to be doing great and moves around rather often.  The other evening I really thought I got a kick that might have been able to be felt externally, but I couldn’t get the baby to recreate the kick for Dave to feel.

My belly is getting out there.  You know how you just know how much space you take up when navigating spaces and doing things like closing a door in front of yourself?  Well, I’ve discovered that I no longer know my own size because I whacked myself in the belly with our backdoor trying to close it the other day.

I can tell the baby is moving further up inside my abdomen because I’m feeling pressure on my actual stomach.  If I eat a normal sized meal now I’m in misery because the space is becoming a premium in there.  Dave said I’ve turned into a nibbler and kind of graze all day now.  I can’t get my mind past thinking I need three normal meals though and still try to eat that quantity only to suffer misery later.   I imagine that in a couple of days my brain will figure it out and I’ll just eat 3 small meals and several snacks.  I’m still doing okay with weight since I’m only up 8 pounds since the beginning.  Now is the time that all the pregnancy guides say a woman can start gaining a pound a week through the end of the pregnancy so I’ve got to be pretty careful.

My normal clothes, well, I should say the normal clothes I still could fit into are now even getting too small.  Today I put on this pink top that is one of my standard weekly apparel items only to discover it not only doesn’t cover my entire belly anymore, but the buttons are now being pulled tight.

My back is even doing decently these days.  I’ve been really being careful and pretty much not helping Dave around the sugarhouse with the maple syrup much at all.  He’s got to work really hard, but if I’m not careful then I’m in misery that evening.  Just one of the things I had to learn as a 36 yr old pregnant gal.  I ain’t 23 anymore…

As soon as we’ve put the sugarhouse and all things related to syrup production away for the season, we’ll start walking probably every other evening at the track.  I keep reading about how important walking is during that last trimester so I’m going to force myself to keep it up so maybe labor & delivery is eased somewhat for me.  I’m trying everything to avoid as many of those first baby, older mom, too many medical interventions difficulties that can easily arise.

Only 6 more weeks until my blood glucose test to see if I’ve developed gestational diabetes.  A pregnant friend just found out she failed the initial glucose test and now has to have the longer (and more needles) glucose test next week.   This one test is causing me some serious anxiety. I can’t do anything about it if gestational diabetes has developed, but my brain likes to freak out about these things anyway.

Oh, and no one REALLY explained to me just how much dreaming is affected by pregnancy.  Holy cow, I swear all I do at night is dream these weirdo, bizarre dreams now.  Considering I never use to have dreams I could recall by morning, this is a new and occasionally disturbing reality.

Update on My Monday

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

I posted this below about what I would be doing today.  Monday:  grocery shopping & CVS (there are special sales I’m hitting at both places today in order to stock-up on things), spring clean kitchen & pantry (and possibly finish spring clean in living room), 2 loads of laundry (start to finish), pack 7 gallons of syrup into pint containers for sale at the church on 29th.  Evening:  attend third lecture in series on life & times of St. Paul and help Dave collect sap from at least one location.

It is 12:30 now and I’ve accomplished the grocery shopping & CVS shopping.  At CVS I was able to get 3 bottles of Listerine, my face wash, lotion, & 8 Bounty brand paper towels for $19!  Considering that before my little coupons and such the bottles of Listerine were $5.49 each and the Bounty was $6.99…I think I did pretty good (saving over $15 total).  And at my grocery store I got $96 worth of stuff for $50.83.  I totally stocked up on all this random stuff that I’ve need in order to restock my pantry.   I love watching that register total get pretty high and then watch it slam to the ground after coupons and sales are tallied!

I also spoke with my mom and it looks like she’s going to deal with getting her plane ticket tomorrow!  It really is looking like she’s headed our way soon!!

And since it is getting late in the day, I need to get myself busy doing laundry, cleaning and packing syrup.

A Maybe Visitor!!

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Well, my mom MIGHT be visiting us here March 30th!!!  Yeah!  She’s not been here yet and it will be wonderful to finally show her where I live now.  There are a couple things happening back in IL that might still make it so she can’t come, but we’ll see.  Dad sounded hopeful when I spoke to him Sunday afternoon.

So this week I’m going to proceed like she’s coming for sure.  Her visit should offer me some really good incentive to finish spring cleaning too!  This is kind of a busy week for me, so I’m going to have to eek out time wherever I can to accomplish my cleaning chores.

This is how this week is shaping up:

Monday:  grocery shopping & CVS (there are special sales I’m hitting at both places today in order to stock-up on things), spring clean kitchen & pantry (and possibly finish spring clean in living room), 2 loads of laundry (start to finish), pack 7 gallons of syrup into pint containers for sale at the church on 29th.  Evening:  attend third lecture in series on life & times of St. Paul and help Dave collect sap from at least one location.

Tuesday:  Deliver 10-15 gallons of syrup to a restaurant in MASS (1.5 hours drive time each way), regular cleaning in bathroom and spring clean our bedroom.

Wednesday:  Home Only Day!!  Spring clean upstairs & downstairs hallways, stairwell and organize some stuff in attic,  if time permits clean office/guest room.  And get laundry completely caught up.  (Our hallways & stairwell have killer amounts of woodwork so those projects could take me several hours…)

Thursday:  Finish any leftover cleaning projects, Bible Study at 1PM.

Friday:  Spend morning with Dave helping with maple syrup production (this could be our last weekend because some trees are starting to bud.)  Spend afternoon with sister-in-law between picking up niece & nephew from school then taking nephew to choir.  Home by 5PM.

Saturday:  Maple syrup production.

Sunday: Mass, sell maple syrup for church fundraiser at pancake breakfast between masses.  (Dave tapped all the giant maples on the church property making 7 gallons of syrup to use as a fundraiser for a missions trip some folks at church at taking to Jamaica.  We’ll be selling “church syrup” in pint containers so hopefully lots of parishioners will take advantage of buying syrup. )  And then finish maple syrup production potentially for the season.

Kind of roughly, that is the plan for the week.  I’ll have finished spring cleaning the house on top of having the house “mom ready” if she’s able to come out.

Over the weekend, I made four dinner’s worth of meatballs and froze them in individual dinner packets.  I need to update my 21 Freezer Meals post because I’m further along with that project than I previously thought.